I don’t know about you, but I am pretty sure that if there were pictures in the dictionary, you would find mine right beside the word “insecure“.
So, it’s no surprise that I was thrilled to read this book as soon as I saw the title:
Because, who doesn’t want the Biblical kind of confidence in this thing called life?!
So, within even the first few pages of this book (I am reviewing the digital version), I knew this book was written for me. Kayla is so completely honest in this book about her life, her fears, her insecurities, her mistakes, from adolescent age to adult…that any mom cannot help but relate to something within the pages of this book. But, most likely, you’ll be like me…laughing…crying…nodding your head…and wondering how she could possibly know so much about you when you know you have kept it hidden well beneath the walls of your life.
I wanted to be able to embrace it, believe it, and live it. I wanted a hallowed spirit of confidence to be my anthem. The problem was, after spending so many years feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, I didn’t really know who I was. I had sort of pieced together a false personality based on attributes that people seemed to admire in my friends or what I thought was expected of me.
She mixes her life story, her testimony, with lots of witty humor and with God’s word, and how she’s learned from it over the years.
The problem was that I had let myself be defined by other people. I had set my guidelines by other flawed humans rather than by the spirit of who I was created to be. Defining ourselves by the narrow perspective of another person limits us to only a small portion of our potential. It creates boundaries and restrictions where God intended for us to experience freedom. Seriously, that’s not my opinion, that’s in the actual Bible: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17).
It’s one thing to know you are insecure, but this book takes it to a whole new level as it challenges you to learn that God didn’t make you to be insecure…to set unrealistic expectations for yourself and your life as a mom/wife/employee/homemaker/etc. And how to change.
I remember my husband and I discussing my dislike of cooking when we were engaged, declaring my insistence that I would enjoy it when we were married. “Then I’ll be cooking as a wife. It will be, like, my job,” I told him emphatically. It’s so cute how naïve I was. I truly believed that once we said, “I do,” I would be blessed with Martha Stewart-esque domestic skills and that I would count it all joy because that’s what I’d been taught about biblical womanhood. So you can see how it was slightly confusing to me when I felt less like counting it all joy and more like throwing my spatula across the room the sixth time I burnt our dinner black.
I read this book pretty slowly. Much due to the busy life I have with the three kids and all that we are uncles in as a family, but I decided I liked it more in short sessions–a little laughter with a challenge during my little one’s nap time. I personally wouldn’t recommend rushing through it, though it is not a hard read at all!
The Word is our metamorphosis, coming to life within us, and we emerge stretching damp gossamer wings of grace.
If you are a woman/wife/mom, this book is for you. I am not sure that I have ever read a more open and honest book. It was refreshing to feel that I’m not alone in my innermost thoughts and fears, and that there are others who not only have been there, but have found their way away from their fears and insecurities and straight to God’s grace and confidence in who He designed them to be.
You can find your copy here using my affiliate link:
I received this book for free from B&H Publishing Group Blogger Program for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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